Santorum clings to team of pals

There was a time when Republicans found Rick Santorum’s us-against-them brand of shoestring, seat of the pants-style campaigning charming and even admirable. Strategists on all sides of the 2012 race now believe that time is long past and that if Santorum wants even a fighting chance at becoming the Republican nominee, he urgently needs to assemble a more expansive, professional political operation.

Santorum’s team is defying criticism of its guerrilla approach, forging ahead into the next phase of the primary race without a major adjustment in the improvisational strategy that’s been driven so far by the candidate and a clique of close advisers.

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Santorum has battled concerns about his field and turnout machinery, suffering from a series of stumbles that left him without access to the Virginia ballot and ineligible for some delegates in Ohio. He leans on local political networks, powered in many cases by grass-roots Christian conservatives, as a substitute for Mitt Romney’s bulked-up organization. The campaign maintains the tightest of inner circles, reserving Santorum’s ear for a small list of longtime aides and supporters.

Of all the candidates who have sought the Republican presidential nomination, none — except, perhaps, Ron Paul — has kept his team of top strategists as insular as Santorum. Even as his campaign has added a coalitions director, digital staff and communications aides, the core of Santorum’s team is much the same as it was six months ago.

Actually, it would be only a mild exaggeration to say it’s the same as it was six years ago, when Santorum was taking advice in the Senate from GOP media consultant John Brabender and chief of staff Mark Rodgers. Both men are intimately involved in his presidential campaign, with only a handful of aides who joined Santorum early in the Iowa and New Hampshire phase of the race sharing the candidate’s attention.

And now, with the race playing out on a national scale, there’s little sign that the group intends to grow beyond the gang that knows Santorum best and with whom the candidate is most at ease.

“What you see now is what we’ve seen [from Santorum] in Pennsylvania — smart, articulate, disciplined. I think the inner circle is very, very small,” said former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, who served in Congress with Santorum in the 1990s. “It’s always been that way for Rick.”

Chuck Laudner, a former Iowa GOP official who helped steer Santorum’s effort in the state, said the campaign is “mostly the same group” as it was there.

“There’s no entourage with this candidate. It’s a pretty tight-knit group, and they all control their own little corner of the world and take care of their responsibilities,” said Laudner, explaining there’s a “comfort level” with that small crew. “That’s part of the appeal. It isn’t some deliberate show – or lack of show.”